Official Jamal Shead Thread

[Los_29]

He’s an on ball PG who can’t shoot, finish or create alot of advantages.

I’m not really sold on him as the long term back up PG at all but he’s a good dude and great leader. Don’t set him up with the FVV comps, FVV was a much better defender and significantly better shooter coming out of College.

FVV a much better defender? Ya, that’s simply not true.

Fred is definitely a better overall defender. Shead has potential to be very good defensively though.

[NinjaBro]

Matt Devlin's propaganda about FVV's "heavy hands" have y'all brainwashed into thinking FVV was a good defender omg

[Los_29]

Matt Devlin's propaganda about FVV's "heavy hands" have y'all brainwashed into thinking FVV was a good defender omg

One vote shy of being second team ALL-NBA defense in 2022. One of the top defensive players at his position this past year.

Read on Twitter

I must say, you’ve been on quite a roll recently.

[HumbleRen]

He’s an on ball PG who can’t shoot, finish or create alot of advantages.

I’m not really sold on him as the long term back up PG at all but he’s a good dude and great leader. Don’t set him up with the FVV comps, FVV was a much better defender and significantly better shooter coming out of College.

FVV a much better defender? Ya, that’s simply not true.

He is. Fvv is significantly better than him at it. Shead isn’t even better at defence than Jakobe is.

Don’t get fooled by full court presses and 8 second violations. That’s the flashy stuff. Watch him in the half court defence against real NBA players, they eat him up. He’ll get better at it with experience but his rookie season? He was 100% a negative defender lol.

[ATLTimekeeper]

Fred looked worse in Nurse's system that had no bigs and required him to play 38 minutes a night at high octane, with zero relief at back-up PG thanks to Scottie's Magic Johnson aspiration and Malachi Flynn's inability to smile.

Shead struggled with the speed of NBA talent, but will likely adjust and be fine there. There is a limit to the effectiveness of small guards on D.

There's 50 players in the NBA < 6"4. If you looked at the top 20 in MPG, Fred would be hands down the best defender.

It's in that next 30 where it becomes dicier to be a strong rotation player. The guys that are getting minutes because of their defense are Cason Wallace, Davion Mitchell, Jose Alvarado, Kris Dunn, Pippen Jr, Marcus Smart. Shead has to get to that level, and he's the smallest. It's gonna be tough, but he does enough things well and he's great in the room that he'll likely get a long leash here.

[canada_dry]

A stat to remember: 28 in 28.

He shot 28 % from 3 in his final 28 games of the regular season.

That simply has to go up.

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[ConSarnit]

Fred looked worse in Nurse's system that had no bigs and required him to play 38 minutes a night at high octane, with zero relief at back-up PG thanks to Scottie's Magic Johnson aspiration and Malachi Flynn's inability to smile.

Shead struggled with the speed of NBA talent, but will likely adjust and be fine there. There is a limit to the effectiveness of small guards on D.

There's 50 players in the NBA < 6"4. If you looked at the top 20 in MPG, Fred would be hands down the best defender.

It's in that next 30 where it becomes dicier to be a strong rotation player. The guys that are getting minutes because of their defense are Cason Wallace, Davion Mitchell, Jose Alvarado, Kris Dunn, Pippen Jr, Marcus Smart. Shead has to get to that level, and he's the smallest. It's gonna be tough, but he does enough things well and he's great in the room that he'll likely get a long leash here.

The Nurse-ball system worked in part because of Fred. Him being able to switch onto bigger players and hold up made playing small tenable.

We can criticize FVV for a lot of things but he’s really good at defense. He can guard point of attack, fight through screens and switch onto bigger players and not get killed. You can’t ask for much more from your PG defensively.

[Rodrickle]

Fred looked worse in Nurse's system that had no bigs and required him to play 38 minutes a night at high octane, with zero relief at back-up PG thanks to Scottie's Magic Johnson aspiration and Malachi Flynn's inability to smile.

Shead struggled with the speed of NBA talent, but will likely adjust and be fine there. There is a limit to the effectiveness of small guards on D.

There's 50 players in the NBA < 6"4. If you looked at the top 20 in MPG, Fred would be hands down the best defender.

It's in that next 30 where it becomes dicier to be a strong rotation player. The guys that are getting minutes because of their defense are Cason Wallace, Davion Mitchell, Jose Alvarado, Kris Dunn, Pippen Jr, Marcus Smart. Shead has to get to that level, and he's the smallest. It's gonna be tough, but he does enough things well and he's great in the room that he'll likely get a long leash here.

Shead is bigger than Alvarado. Alvarado measured 5'11 at the combine, and Shead was 6'025. This is identical also to Davion Mitchell.

[tsherkin]

A stat to remember: 28 in 28.

He shot 28 % from 3 in his final 28 games of the regular season.

That simply has to go up.

Yeah, he's a bad 3pt shooter. He was a bad 3pt shooter in college over his 4 years and that didn't improve in the NBA. We just have to hope he's able to improve it, or we have to deal with it, knowing that he isn't going to be a starter. Sometimes, when you're dealing with bench guys, you can get away with weaknesses which would be intolerable in a higher-minutes player.

[mtcan]

A stat to remember: 28 in 28.

He shot 28 % from 3 in his final 28 games of the regular season.

That simply has to go up.

Yeah, he's a bad 3pt shooter. He was a bad 3pt shooter in college over his 4 years and that didn't improve in the NBA. We just have to hope he's able to improve it, or we have to deal with it, knowing that he isn't going to be a starter. Sometimes, when you're dealing with bench guys, you can get away with weaknesses which would be intolerable in a higher-minutes player.

Not every young player has to have an ultimate goal of being a starter...like not everyone working a restaurant needs to be a head chef. The energy, defensive pressure and on court leadership is enough for him to be a very solid backup. I'm happy with that. If guys like Ochai, Shead and Mogbo project to be 6/7/8th men in the rotation for their careers and they have marketable skills...that is all they need to be.

[tsherkin]

Not every young player has to have an ultimate goal of being a starter

I absolutely agree.

I'm thrilled with Shead already, given that he was a 2nd rounder. If he never improves his 3, but continues to be a positive defender and a semi-competent playmaker for us as a 10-15 mpg guy, that's still a solid pickup. I have said this elsewhere. My point was more to point out that we can tolerate him being a crap shooter in limited minutes because it's far less of an exploitable problem for a bench guy who mostly faces other bench guys.

[TheGeneral99]

Shead, I'm not really that high on him.

Positives - defense, toughness, grit, leadership, and his 3 point shooting looks a little better from summer league.

Negatives - has not shown he's a good facilitator, has a lot of bad turnovers on the pick and roll, not a consistent shooter.

I'm hoping at best case scenario he can be a competent point guard and maybe reach a Gabe Vincent level if we are insanely lucky, but I'm not that optimistic.

[tsherkin]

Shead, I'm not really that high on him.

Positives - defense, toughness, grit, leadership, and his 3 point shooting looks a little better from summer league.

Negatives - has not shown he's a good facilitator, has a lot of bad turnovers on the pick and roll, not a consistent shooter.

I'm hoping at best case scenario he can be a competent point guard and maybe reach a Gabe Vincent level if we are insanely lucky, but I'm not that optimistic.

If we're projecting him as a 10 mpg player, he's fine. For a 2nd rounder, that's a win. He doesn't need to have a high ceiling to be valuable to us at slot.

[TheGeneral99]

Shead, I'm not really that high on him.

Positives - defense, toughness, grit, leadership, and his 3 point shooting looks a little better from summer league.

Negatives - has not shown he's a good facilitator, has a lot of bad turnovers on the pick and roll, not a consistent shooter.

I'm hoping at best case scenario he can be a competent point guard and maybe reach a Gabe Vincent level if we are insanely lucky, but I'm not that optimistic.

If we're projecting him as a 10 mpg player, he's fine. For a 2nd rounder, that's a win. He doesn't need to have a high ceiling to be valuable to us at slot.

That's fair.

I'm just hoping we can finally find a suitable back up point guard...we have been fortunate to have had Lowry and Vasquez, and then Lowry and Cory Joseph and then Lowry and Fred...but since Lowry has been gone, we have really struggled to find a backup PG and our offensive bench production has been bottom of the league since 2021.

[tsherkin]

That's fair.

I'm just hoping we can finally find a suitable back up point guard...we have been fortunate to have had Lowry and Vasquez, and then Lowry and Cory Joseph and then Lowry and Fred...but since Lowry has been gone, we have really struggled to find a backup PG and our offensive bench production has been bottom of the league since 2021.

We have bigger problems than our backup PG, I'd think. And we have more opportunity to distribute the playmaking duties with our roster as it is presently set. What we need is at least one of Walter or Gradey to figure out scoring effectively at reasonable efficiency, and Mamu to be semi-reliable for us at the 5 off the bench. Then our reserves will be okay. Wouldn't suck if CMB figured out basic C+S 3pt shooting, either.

[TheGeneral99]

That's fair.

I'm just hoping we can finally find a suitable back up point guard...we have been fortunate to have had Lowry and Vasquez, and then Lowry and Cory Joseph and then Lowry and Fred...but since Lowry has been gone, we have really struggled to find a backup PG and our offensive bench production has been bottom of the league since 2021.

We have bigger problems than our backup PG, I'd think. And we have more opportunity to distribute the playmaking duties with our roster as it is presently set. What we need is at least one of Walter or Gradey to figure out scoring effectively at reasonable efficiency, and Mamu to be semi-reliable for us at the 5 off the bench. Then our reserves will be okay. Wouldn't suck if CMB figured out basic C+S 3pt shooting, either.

Of course but it always helps to have a competent backup PG that can run the offense, score at a decent clip and put guys in good positions to score.

Obviously seeing Gradey/Walters and CMB becoming solid consistent rotational players would bolster the bench as well.

[tsherkin]

Of course but it always helps to have a competent backup PG that can run the offense, score at a decent clip and put guys in good positions to score.

It wouldn't hurt (duh, it would obviously help), but we aren't in a position where I'm worried about it too much just yet. It'll be relevant when we take the NEXT step and start trying to WIN playoff series as opposed to simply REACHING the postseason.


Just not my focus/emphasis at the moment for where we should be looking, I think. Not when we can get any sort of basic playmaking out of Scottie and BI and Quick, you know? And with RJ's improvement as a playmaker as well. Distributed offense is probably more important, and figuring out how to get semi-competent scoring support for the mains (and from the mains, at that).